?I want to come to the U.S. to rest,? said the dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng, speaking from Beijing to members of Congress by way of a cellphone held up to a microphone.
ChinaChen GuangchengUnited States International RelationsDiplomatic Service, Embassies and ConsulatesHuman Rights and Human Rights ViolationsClinton, Hillary RodhamBy JANE PERLEZ and STEVEN LEE MYERS, Thu, 03 May 2012 22:06:26 GMT
Chinese citizens have had to tread carefully in discussing Chen Guangcheng, the dissident who sought refuge at the American Embassy.
ChinaChen GuangchengHuman Rights and Human Rights ViolationsImmigration and EmigrationCommunist Party of ChinaUnited StatesBy MICHAEL WINES and SHARON LaFRANIERE, Thu, 03 May 2012 21:25:02 GMT
Al Qaeda?s senior leadership was split by debates on tactics, strategy and even marketing in the months leading up to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
bin Laden, OsamaClassified Information and State SecretsTerrorismAl QaedaBy PETER BAKER, Thu, 03 May 2012 22:29:55 GMT
Andrew Sparrow with live coverage of the local election results 2012 as they come in, and the reaction from all the political parties
11.55pm: Labour have won a seat in Basildon from the Tories. In the Pitsea ward, Labour won 932 seats, the Tories 564, Ukip 323 - and the Lib Dems just 97.
11.51pm: My colleague Alexandra Topping is at the count in Liverpool. She's sent me this.
Lots of hustle and bustle in the hanger-like Liverpool tennis centre on the outskirts of the city where the count to discover who will be Liverpool's first elected mayor is well under way.
Early indications show no surprises, with Joe Anderson, the Labour candidate and current leader of the council expected to win by what may be a landslide.
Current word on the floor is that he could have taken anywhere between 60 and 100% of the vote.
The political balance in Lincoln is on a knife edge between Labour and Conservatives. The outcome this time has extra significance as this is now a top parliamentary marginal.
And the Tories also say Ukip are doing well in Bury.
11.38pm: And here's more on turnout.
From the LGiU's Andy Sawford
26.1% turnout in key Labour target of Lincoln has been confirmed #le12
a quick take on turnout so far, we've got about 6 councils in - we are looking at around 30%, a bit down on last year #le12 #lgiu
From Neil Whitton on Twitter
@AndrewSparrow Just finished working a polling station in Oxford. Turnout around 14%.
11.34pm:Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, has just told Sky that it will be "an extremely difficult night" for the government.
11.32pm: The Lib Dems have also been briefing. Their version of expectation management involves telling journalists that they are going to get thrashed. Here's an extract from the note that they have sent out.
In the early days of the general election and the coalition, it's easy to forget that even though we increased our vote share [in 2010], we actually lost a number of councillors that night too, and we lost MPs. There are areas we have suffered successive losses, and with that, you lose activists and your lose infrastructure. We're fighting back from low ebb.
Wales. We are standing 25% fewer candidates. Labour have been saying publicly they will take back Cardiff, Wrexham, Swansea and Newport. Anything less than that will be a failure.
Scotland. Again, we are fielding 25% fewer candidates than we did in 2007 (246 this year, 331 in 2007). We are competing in 27 out of 32 council areas (28 in 2007) - This time round we have no candidates in Falkirk, Shetland, Orkney, West Dunbartonshire and Western Isles.
We had a very bad night last year, and are expecting losses this year.
11.25pm: Some results are starting to trickle in. These tweets are from ITV's Gerry Foley.
#le2012 1st Lab gain in Sunderland from Con .. In Washington S by 1802 to 757 ..
#le2012 UKIP out poll Tories in Sunderland Redhill ward by 388 to 125
#le12 5 th tory loss in Sunderland as st chads goes to labour ... Just in Tories lose 6 th sear
This is from Phil Maylor.
Wow. Early indications are that there will be no Lib Dem councillors left in Salford after tonight. #LE2012
This is from Adnad Rashid.
@thegreenparty may have won a beach head victory in #Dudley. Their candidate looks very pleased. #LE2012
11.15pm: More from the expectation management battlefront.
The Tories tell me that even if they do as well as they did in the 2010 general election, they will still lose 200 seats and five councils. (Of course, you could point out that they didn't actually win the 2010 general election.)
And Labour point out that in 2008, when Labour lost 435 seats in local elections, Eric Pickles said: "The ship of state is heading towards the rocks." But recently Pickles said the Tories could lose up to 450 seats.
11.10pm: Earlier I mentioned the Rallings and Thrasher suggestion that Labour should be able to gain 700 seats. (See 10.03pm.) Tom Watson, Labour's vice chair, has used Twitter to dismiss this.
Tory spin that we have to win 1000 seats in England and Wales is ridiculous. There's only 3600 seats. 450 in Wales in England is top notch.
I presume he means that winning 450 seats in Wales and England would be "top notch".
Not to be outdone, the Tories are now saying Labour need to win 800 seats to be doing well. Here's an extract from the briefing they've sent out.
The Conservative Party are currently at a high watermark in terms of seats, defending almost half of those up for election in England. The last time these seats were fought, Labour polled 24 per cent. It was when Gordon Brown was at his most unpopular and the Conservatives were riding high in the polls. Labour are now polling in the low-to-mid forties so they should be making big gains.
This election is a test for Ed Miliband's leadership. Independent experts say that Labour should gain around 800 seats in these mid-term local elections. Tom Watson's attempt to spin that Labour would only gain 350 seats was always fanciful and has been thoroughly discredited. Even the Labour supporting Mirror suggests that in the current political climate the party should expect to make around 1,000 gains for it to be considered a good result. Many in the Labour Party have said that they must win London and Glasgow.
The Liberal Democrats tend to do better in local elections than their poll rating would suggest.
10.57pm: Turnout could be one of the stories of the night. LostinFife sent me this on Twitter.
@AndrewSparrow volunteers at #Fife polling station say it's worst turnout: 31% in my district, 24% in the other. Only 1 station of course
For the record, here are the turnout figures for the last equivalent set of elections.
London mayoral elections in 2008 - 44.6% English locals in 2008 - 34.9% Welsh locals in 2008 - 43.7% Scottish locals in 2007 - 52.8%
The fall in turnout is likely to be particularly steep in Scotland, but that's because the last local elections in Scotland coincided with elections to the Scottish parliament. But in 2007 the use of different voting systems in the two Scottish elections - the locals and the Scottish parliament ones - caused confusion and so the local elections were postponed until 2012 (they should have been last year) to avoid the same problem recurring. But it means that these will be the first Scottish local elections for 17 years that do not coincide with parliamentary elections of one kind or another. This is bound to depress turnout.
10.50pm:Ed Davey, the Lib Dem energy secretary, has found a nice way of spinning tonight's expected Lib Dem losses.
We've been waiting for mid-term blues for 90 years.
He's making the point that losing seats is an inevitable part of being in government.
Birmingham was one of the cities that was expected to actually vote yes to having an elected mayor. Most of the 10 cities voting are expected to vote no.
10.35pm: Cardiff is the biggest council that the Lib Dems are defending in the UK. My colleague Steven Morris is there, and he's send me this from Splott.
Labour candidates and workers are sounding chipper as they wait for the votes to be counted at the Splott leisure centre and library. Splott and the surrounding neighbourhoods is a traditional working-class kind of area ? tight terrace houses not far from the docks.
Chris Lomax, who is standing in nearby Grangetown believes Labour can take all three seats in the ward from the Liberal Democrats, who have been running Cardiff council.
"I think the voters are disenchanted with the Lib Dems," he said. "They have been talking about local issues, the cleanliness of the streets, cuts to services, not the national picture."
Lomax says he has not seen evidence of the Lib Dems campaigning hard on the streets. "They seem to have given up." Aged 69, Lomax is an interesting character. He worked as a baker for 40 years, then re-trained and became a procurement officer in the NHS. He retired but "got bored" and decided to stand as a councillor. He believes by the end of the night his party may be in control of the Welsh capital.
Morgan Hart, an agent for Lib Dem candidate Liz Musa in Butetown, is also impressed with the work Labour has put in. "They've been employing the dark arts, getting people to the polling stations in taxis, calling in favours. I think they are going to do well."
Gavin Cox, who has been a Lib Dem councillor in the Splott ward for eight years, says from what he has seen turnout has been no better than four years ago ? which he hopes could be good news for him if it means Labour has not got its vote out. "But it's hard to know whether people will vote on local issues or on Westminster ones," he says. Party volunteer Tom insists the Lib Dems have fought hard here and across Cardiff. Will the party still be in power by morning? "It's a possibility," he says.
10.25pm: Labour sources are saying the party is on course for a "strong performance". They are confident of progress in key areas in the Midlands and the south of England, and particularly in places like Harlow and Reading where they need to win if they want to beat the Tories in 2015, they say.
Labour run a minority administration and will hope to strengthen their position by making the 4 gains they need for an outright majority. They will need to watch out for the Greens who are also targetting gains.
And this is what the LGiU says about Harlow.
Another of the few areas in the East of England where Labour is competitive, the Conservatives currently hold the council with a vulnerable 1 seat majority.
10.03pm: Sky News are showing an election package. They've just said that to be doing well, Labour need to win more than 700 seats.
You've probably heard the 700 figure already. It comes from Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, the Plymouth University local elections experts who have virtually cornered the market in local election psephology. They say that Labour would need to win about 700 seats to show that the lead that they enjoy over the Conservatives in the national opinion polls (9 points, according to the very latest YouGov figures) is real.
First, the Tories could benefit from the Lib Dem collapse in the south as a result of tactical voting unwinding. Under this scenario, the Lib Dems could lose 350 seats, and the Tories just 250, they suggest.
Second, the Lib Dems could do better than expected. Under this scenario, the the Tories could lose 350 seats, and the Lib Dems just 250, the experts suggest.
Both these scenarios would see Labour gaining only around 600 seats, not 700.
10.00pm: The polls have just closed. From all that we've heard about the turnout, it sounds as if we won't be having a repeat of 2010, when, as the clock struck 10, people in Sheffield and elsewhere were still queuing to get in at some polling stations.
9.39pm: My colleague Helen Pidd is in Bradford, where it sounds as if the election has turned ugly. She's just sent me this.
Things are getting testy in Bradford, where George Galloway's Respect party is challenging the political establishment in 12 out of the 30 wards up for grabs. Salma Yaqoob, leader of Respect, has just tweeted that her brother's car was attacked by "Labour supporters" in the city this afternoon.
I have just spoken to her brother, Farrukh Haroon, who has been helping the Respect campaign. The 36-year-old says he was outside the Iqra school polling station in the Manningham area of the city ? a ward Respect is confident of winning from Labour ? when the alleged attack happened.
Haroon says he and his cousin had been driving up and down the Drummond Road with a megaphone, shouting Respect slogans "and saying stuff about Labour's support for the war" when they attracted the attention of some Labour supporters outside the primary school. He claims that they "attacked" the car, yanking off a wing mirror and pulling the keys from the ignition, snapping them into three pieces. Two children in the back of Haroon's car were "terrified", he says, and one was so frightened he jumped out of the car and tried to run away.
Helen is trying to get more information.
9.00pm: In the Guardian today Joris Luyendijk, the Dutch anthropologist who has been travelling around Britain to find out what people think about the local elections, says that "if elections are the main ritual by which a nation imagines itself politically, then the UK last week felt comatose". He's probably got a point, and already there are stories predicting an unusually low turnout. But regular readers will know that we hold it as an article of faith here that there's no such thing as a boring election. People have been voting all over Britain, in council elections in England, Scotland and Wales, in elections for the mayor and the assembly in London, in mayoral elections in Liverpool and Salford and in other 11 referendums where people will either be voting on whether their city should have a mayor or, in Doncaster, where they will be voting to abolish the mayoral post. Over the next 24 hours we'll be getting the results. No one's going to be comatose in this office.
But London and Scotland aren't counting tonight. We're going to have to wait for those results until tomorrow. I'll be writing blogging here until 6am, and I'll be covering the results in England and Wales.
Here are some timings.
10pm: Polls close.
10.35pm: Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, is among the panellists on Question Time. We'll see if she's sounding optimistic.
11.35pm: The BBC's election programme, Vote 2012, starts. David Dimbleby (of course) is presenting.
12pm: Sky's election programme gets going. The first results should start trickling in.
1am: By now more than a dozen English councils should have declared, and the first Welsh results should be in.
Around 3am: The BBC should have enough results to be able to produce a projected national share of the vote. This involves taking results from representative wards and using those figures to work out what the results would have been if there had been local elections in every ward in the country. It's the figure that will dominate the headlines tomorrrow.
Around 5am: Liverpool's mayoral result is expected.
As you can see, it's going to take a while before we start getting some proper results. But, if you want to read up on the elections in the meantime, here is some heavyweight briefing.
Major General Jonathan Shaw says 'it was a surprise to people quite how vulnerable we are'
Computer hackers have managed to breach some of the top secret systems within the Ministry of Defence, the military's head of cyber-security has revealed.
Major General Jonathan Shaw told the Guardian the number of successful attacks was hard to quantify but they had added urgency to efforts to beef up protection around the MoD's networks.
"The number of serious incidents is quite small, but it is there," he said. "And those are the ones we know about. The likelihood is there are problems in there we don't know about."
Government computer systems come under daily attack, but though Shaw would not say how or by whom, this is the first admission that the MoD's own systems have been breached.
Shaw, a veteran of the Falklands and Iraq wars, also said the MoD had to be prepared to embrace unconventional and "wacky" ideas if the military wanted to catch up with, and then stay ahead of, rivals in the cybersphere. Getting "kids on the street" to help the military was vital, he said.
"My generation ? we are far too old for this; it is not what we have grown up with. Our natural recourse is to reach for a pen and paper. And although we can set up structures, we really need to be on listening mode for this one."
He added: "If we want to work the response, if we want to know really what is happening, we really have to listen to the young kids out in the street. They are telling us what is happening out there.
"That will pose a real challenge to us. This thing is moving too fast. The only people who spot what is happening are people at the coal face and that is the young kids. We have to listen to them and they have to talk to us."
A former director of UK special forces, Shaw, 54, said he thought the military could learn a trick or two from firms such as Facebook.
The company has a "white hat" programme in which hackers are paid rewards for informing them when they have found a security vulnerability.
Nine people in the UK have been paid a total of $11,000 (£6,785) for working with Facebook. Shaw said this was the kind of "waacky idea we need to bring in".
Shaw has spent the last year reviewing the MoD's approach to cyber-security, and the kind of cyber-capability the military will need in the future.
He says next year's MoD budget is expected to include new money for cyber-defence ? an acknowledgment that even during a time of redundancies and squeezed budgets, this is now a priority.
The general said the MoD wasn't "doing badly ? but we could do a hell of a lot better. We will get there, but we will have to do it fast. I think it was a surprise to people this year quite how vulnerable we are, which is why the measures have survived so long in the [budget] because people have become aware of the vulnerabilities and are taking them seriously."
China and Russia have been accused of being behind most of the sophisticated cyber-attacks, with state-sponsored hackers targeting military secrets from western governments, or intellectual property from British and American defence firms.
Shaw refused to point the finger at any nation, but admitted the UK was "trying to engage the Chinese on rules of the road in cyberspace", pressing the argument that new international treaties are not necessary to stop this kind of theft and espionage.
Shaw said the number of attacks was "still on an upward curve ? and the pace of change is unrelenting".
In his last interview before retiring, Shaw said the UK had to develop an array of its own cyber-weapons because it was impossible to create entirely secure computer systems.
"It is quite right to say that pure defence, building firewalls, will not keep the enemy out. They might be inside already ? there is no such thing as total security. You have to learn to live with certain insecurities.
"One needs to engage in internal defence and be quite aggressive about it. And if you are going to manoeuvre in cyberspace, that is something that obviously involves action across the spectrum."
Shaw said he intended to "mainstream" cyber-capabilities across the MoD by 2015. This included ensuring military commanders had a range of cyber-options to use from a "golf bag" of weapons systems.
But he thought cyber-weapons would complement rather than replace more conventional weapons.
"As new capabilities come on the block, you reassess whether you need the old ones, whether they are complimentary or duplicatory.
"People have asked me whether cyber-weapons will make conventional weapons redundant. Absolutely not. A hard bomb is actually quite a good cyber-weapon because it can take out a broadcasting station, take out a server."
The military top brass, he said, had been the "hardest to convince" about the cyber-threat, because high-ranking officers tend to be set in their ways. "We are the wrong guys to deal with this."
Shaw said it still surprised him that the MoD's headquarters in Whitehall "is the only building, main defence security establishment, where you don't leave your mobile phones and Ipad in a box outside your office ? people's personal behaviours are not good enough. When we look at cyber-security in the MoD, we are looking at preserving intellectual property and our networks and stopping people spying on us.
"The real challenge is how we secure our supply chains. We are dependent on industry for our technological edge ? and preserving that intellectual property is absolutely vital."
He added: "Cyber implies something technical. To the average person in the street, cyber means it is someone else's problem. But it is everyone's problem. We can't just leave it to the techies."
An MoD spokesman said: "The MoD takes all possible precautions to defend our system from attack from both unsolicited, for example 'spam' email, and targeted sources. It would be both misleading and naïve to assume that any system is 100% secure against all possible threats which is why we take additional steps to detect suspicious activity within our own systems.
"We also ensure that our most sensitive networks are not connected to the internet and have additional physical and technical measures in place to defend them."
Obama administration facing dilemma over how to act on Chinese dissident's request to be transported to the US
The Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney has stirred the controversy over the US administration's handling of the Chen Guangcheng affair, describing the unfolding crisis over the human rights activist's fate as "a dark day for freedom".
Romney joined a chorus of Republican members of Congress as well as Chinese human rights activists in questioning whether the US government's concern about maintaining good relations with Beijing had trumped its commitment to human rights.
Chen, after a short stay at the US embassy, is now in hospital in Beijing and back under the control of Chinese government authorities, after a deal negotiated by a special envoy from the US state department quickly unravelled.
The Obama administration is now faced with a serious dilemma over how to resolve the controversy.
Chen, from his hospital bed, has told journalists and fellow activists he felt pressured to leave the embassy, particularly after a US official conveyed a message from the Chinese government that Chen interpreted as a threat that he might never again see his wife and two children. He is asking for a safe passage to America, telling the Daily Beast that he would prefer departing on the same plane as US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Clinton began talks Thursday with China's president, Hu Jintao, in Beijing, a day after Chen left the embassy. Activists expressed their suspicion that Chen was hustled out to avoid undermining the summit.
Romney, who will challenge Obama for the White House in November, said during a campaign stop in Virginia: "The reports are, if they are accurate, that our administration wittingly or unwittingly communicated to Chen an implicit threat to his family and also probably sped up, or may have sped up, the process of his decision to leave the embassy. If these reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom, and it's a day of shame for the Obama administration."
Republicans contrasted the treatment of Chen with how past Democratic and Republican presidents had provided sanctuary for dissidents for years at US embassies in the old Soviet empire.
At an emergency congressional hearing on the issue, Republican representatives Chris Smith and Frank Wolf echoed Romney. Wolf asked whether "word had come down from on high to resolve the situation" before the summit and described the Obama administration's actions as "naive". Among those giving evidence to the hearing, "Bob" Fu, one of the leading Chinese dissidents living in the US and a friend of Chen's who spoke with him on Wednesday night, urged Clinton, a vocal champion of human rights, to break off from her talks at the summit to deal with Chen. "Secretary Clinton, this is the moment to deliver on what you promised over the last few years," Fu said.
Earlier, at a press conference, Fu described his phone conversation with Chen from the hospital. "'I felt pressured to leave.' These were his exact words," Fu said.
US officials said Chen, who escaped from house arrest in his Shandong province village to the US embassy last week, had initially agreed to a deal in which he would be allowed to study law at a Chinese university. After leaving the embassy and speaking with his family, he told journalists by phone he instead wanted to leave for the US.
A US official said on Thursday that Washington is ready to help Chen. But his situation is complicated because he is now in a Chinese hospital rather than under US protection.
In a phone interview with the Guardian, Chen said that he was worried about his health, the safety of relatives still in his hometown, and his lack of communication with the outside world.
"I can't go out. No friends visit me. For a time, my cellphone did not work last night, so I worry so much about my relatives back home. There are many people around my home with sticks and they have installed closed-circuit cameras. I heard they are putting an electric fence around my home."
Chen's dramatic escape from 19 months of illegal house arrest in led to days of difficult negotiations between US and Chinese officials. The US ambassador Gary Locke said: "He knew and was very aware that he might have to spend many, many years in the embassy. But he was prepared to do that. And he was fully aware of and talked about what might happen to his family if he stayed in the embassy and they stayed in the village in Shandong province."
Locke added: "He made it very clear from the beginning that he wanted to stay in China, that he wanted to be part of the struggle to improve human rights within China."
The ambassador said the deal included the family's relocation to another part of China where Chen would be able to study law at university and a promise that authorities would investigate the complaints of abuse.
But after Chen was reunited with his wife and children at the Beijing hospital, her account of threats from officials and warnings from friends about the risks the family faced appear to have changed his mind.
US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that the family "have had a change of heart about whether they want to stay in China" and said officials needed to talk further with Chen about options.
Many analysts were sceptical that China would allow the family to leave, although Steve Tsang, an expert on Chinese politics at Nottingham University, said he thought it was still possible. But he warned: "Public diplomacy or grandstanding will limit the scope for quiet diplomacy."
US officials were present at the hospital ? now ringed by police ? but by lunchtime on Thursday had not seen Chen in person. An Obama administration official later said his wife came out of the facility for a long talk with US embassy officials.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin denied Chen had been held under house arrest, saying: "After Chen Guangcheng's release from prison he was a free person, as far as I know. He has been living in his home town." China has criticised the US for interfering, and demanded an apology from US diplomats.
Clinton, opening bilateral talks in Beijing, did not mention Chen specifically, but noted: "Of course, as part of our dialogue, the United States raises the importance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. We believe all governments have to answer our citizens' aspirations for dignity and the rule of law and that no nation can or should deny those rights."
The Chinese Human Rights Defenders network reported that police seized prominent human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong outside Chaoyang hospital. His telephone was switched off on Thursday evening. The activist He Peirong, who drove Chen away from Shandong, is still missing. Concern for her safety was raised at the Congressional hearing.
US military publishes memorandums between Osama Bin Laden and his subordinates that detail how al-Qaida reshaped strategy
Crippling US drone attacks forced Osama bin Laden to consider withdrawing his fighters from what had previously been safe havens in Pakistan, according to newly released documents seized at the compound where the al-Qaida leader was killed a year ago.
Memorandums between Bin Laden and his subordinates, made public by the US military's Combating Terrorism Center on Thursday, also revealed that with support eroding in the Muslim world because of the large number of civilians killed by al-Qaida and its affiliates, he wanted to focus "every bow and arrow" at US targets even at the expense of attacks on other countries, such as Britain, and Nato forces. Bin Laden said it would be a good idea to kill Barack Obama because then an "utterly unprepared" Joe Biden would become president.
But while the al-Qaida leader plotted the downfall of the US, he was forced to acknowledge that American drone attacks were taking a toll on his followers in Afghanistan and Pakistan's Waziristan region, and to contemplate withdrawing forces. He wrote:
Bin Laden said the air attacks made it necessary to keep reserves back from the "front line".
"The reserves will not, for the most part, be effective in such conflicts. Basically, we could lose the reserves to enemy's air strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives!" he said.
He also said that commanders with experience needed to be got out of the area:
In another document, the al-Qaida leader recommends his fighters keep "a low profile":
.
For all of that, Bin Laden asserted that the US was losing in Afghanistan:
Another document, likely to have been written by Bin Laden but possibly another senior leader, calls for a refocusing on the United States as a target.
It says that America should be driven from the Islamic world in part so it "could not threaten or defeat any state which we create". The document said that to reach that goal attacks on Washington's allies, such as Britain, and Nato should largely be abandoned in order to concentrate on the US.
The writer likens America to a tree trunk with branches that represent its Nato allies and friendly governments in the Arab world:
.
Bin Laden proposed assassinating Obama in order to bring Biden, described as "utterly unprepared", to power and throw the US into chaos. He ordered his forces to create two teams that could hit Obama if he travelled to Pakistan or Afghanistan. The then-US military commander in Afghanistan, general David Petraeus, was also a favoured target.
The American al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn in one document discusses how to win support in the US and other countries. He says that the cause is not helped by attacks such as a massacre by al-Qaida of worshippers at a Baghdad Catholic church. He said that Catholics are more likely than other Christians to be more sympathetic to Muslims and causes supported by al-Qaida, including over Palestine. He wrote:
.
Outside of the Middle East, Gadahn proposed focusing on winning support in Ireland, partly in the hope that anger toward the Catholic church over child abuse might turn people toward Islam. He wrote:
Osama bin LadenUS militaryal-QaidaPakistanAfghanistanUnited StatesUS foreign policyGlobal terrorismNatoguardian.co.ukNews, World news, Chris McGreal, Julian BurgessThu, 03 May 2012 18:41:00 GMT2012-05-03T21:33:12Z
Price would value company at upwards of $96bn, just shy of original estimates but still the largest for any internet company
Facebook has indicated it will price itself at between $28 and $35 a share, paving the way for the world's largest social networking site to reach a giddying valuation of almost $100bn when launches its stock market sale in two weeks.
The price range for Facebook's initial public offering of stock (IPO), which was released in a regulatory filing, would value the company at up to $96bn, according to the Wall Street Journal. It would also provide up to $12bn in cash for existing investors and the site's core team.
Mark Zuckerberg, who invented Facebook while studying at Harvard as immortalised in the Hollywood film The Social Network, stands to make up to $19bn personally.
The price range is slightly lower than anticipated, though there is still time for it to slide upwards ahead of a likely start to trading on the Nasdaq which the New York Times says will take place on 17 or 18 May. A ballpark valuation of $100bn had been widely speculated.
Whatever the final figure, the IPO is likely to be the largest for an internet company, dwarfing even the $23bn debut of Google in 2004.
Such staggering sums are a reflection of how ubiquitous the social networking site has become. It crossed the watershed of 500 million users in July 2010 but is fast approaching the day when it will double that number.
The company now has 901 million monthly active users and on current trends is on track to hit the billion mark by the end of the year.
With such reach, comes desirability. The site is gearing up to be a major force in this year's presidential election, with both the Obama re-election campaign and the Mitt Romney campaign putting Facebook at the centre of their strategic plans.
However, there are still bumps and hurdles to be negotiated along the way to Facebook IPO heaven. Last month the company announced that its earnings and revenues had fallen in the first quarter of the year, with profits dropping by 12% from $233m to $205m.
The decline was blamed on rising costs and marketing expenses. Facebook executives will now spend more than a week travelling the US in what is being billed as a road show, selling the idea of the IPO to potential investors.
Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng spoke to a congressional hearing Thursday from his Beijing hospital bed - and requested a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
A northeast Ohio sheriff fired a deputy for ordering five jail inmates to dance to a song by Usher in exchange for privileges such as using a phone or microwave, the sheriff's office said Thursday.
The Illinois Senate agreed Thursday to stop letting lawmakers hand out free college education to certain constituents, removing the final roadblock to ending a century-old practice plagued by allegations of corruption and political favoritism.
BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng made a dramatic plea for help in a cellphone call to a U.S. congressional hearing from his hospital bed in Beijing, raising the pressure on President Barack Obama over his administration's handling of the case.
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless aid dropped by the most in nearly a year last week, easing fears the United States' labor market recovery was stalling.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rick Santorum and Marco Rubio are the top two choices among Republican voters as Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday.
?I want to come to the U.S. to rest,? said the dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng, speaking from Beijing to members of Congress by way of a cellphone held up to a microphone.
ChinaChen GuangchengUnited States International RelationsDiplomatic Service, Embassies and ConsulatesHuman Rights and Human Rights ViolationsClinton, Hillary RodhamBy JANE PERLEZ and STEVEN LEE MYERS, Thu, 03 May 2012 22:06:26 GMT
Chinese citizens have had to tread carefully in discussing Chen Guangcheng, the dissident who sought refuge at the American Embassy.
ChinaChen GuangchengHuman Rights and Human Rights ViolationsImmigration and EmigrationCommunist Party of ChinaUnited StatesBy MICHAEL WINES and SHARON LaFRANIERE, Thu, 03 May 2012 21:25:02 GMT
Details of intrigue, heroics and ultimately what some people involved called a betrayal emerged from Chen Guangcheng?s saga.
Chen GuangchengChinaUnited States International RelationsHuman Rights and Human Rights ViolationsState DepartmentDiplomatic Service, Embassies and ConsulatesBeijing (China)By JANE PERLEZ and ANDREW JACOBS, Thu, 03 May 2012 19:27:46 GMT
Obama administration facing dilemma over how to act on Chinese dissident's request to be transported to the US
The Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney has stirred the controversy over the US administration's handling of the Chen Guangcheng affair, describing the unfolding crisis over the human rights activist's fate as "a dark day for freedom".
Romney joined a chorus of Republican members of Congress as well as Chinese human rights activists in questioning whether the US government's concern about maintaining good relations with Beijing had trumped its commitment to human rights.
Chen, after a short stay at the US embassy, is now in hospital in Beijing and back under the control of Chinese government authorities, after a deal negotiated by a special envoy from the US state department quickly unravelled.
The Obama administration is now faced with a serious dilemma over how to resolve the controversy.
Chen, from his hospital bed, has told journalists and fellow activists he felt pressured to leave the embassy, particularly after a US official conveyed a message from the Chinese government that Chen interpreted as a threat that he might never again see his wife and two children. He is asking for a safe passage to America, telling the Daily Beast that he would prefer departing on the same plane as US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Clinton began talks Thursday with China's president, Hu Jintao, in Beijing, a day after Chen left the embassy. Activists expressed their suspicion that Chen was hustled out to avoid undermining the summit.
Romney, who will challenge Obama for the White House in November, said during a campaign stop in Virginia: "The reports are, if they are accurate, that our administration wittingly or unwittingly communicated to Chen an implicit threat to his family and also probably sped up, or may have sped up, the process of his decision to leave the embassy. If these reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom, and it's a day of shame for the Obama administration."
Republicans contrasted the treatment of Chen with how past Democratic and Republican presidents had provided sanctuary for dissidents for years at US embassies in the old Soviet empire.
At an emergency congressional hearing on the issue, Republican representatives Chris Smith and Frank Wolf echoed Romney. Wolf asked whether "word had come down from on high to resolve the situation" before the summit and described the Obama administration's actions as "naive". Among those giving evidence to the hearing, "Bob" Fu, one of the leading Chinese dissidents living in the US and a friend of Chen's who spoke with him on Wednesday night, urged Clinton, a vocal champion of human rights, to break off from her talks at the summit to deal with Chen. "Secretary Clinton, this is the moment to deliver on what you promised over the last few years," Fu said.
Earlier, at a press conference, Fu described his phone conversation with Chen from the hospital. "'I felt pressured to leave.' These were his exact words," Fu said.
US officials said Chen, who escaped from house arrest in his Shandong province village to the US embassy last week, had initially agreed to a deal in which he would be allowed to study law at a Chinese university. After leaving the embassy and speaking with his family, he told journalists by phone he instead wanted to leave for the US.
A US official said on Thursday that Washington is ready to help Chen. But his situation is complicated because he is now in a Chinese hospital rather than under US protection.
In a phone interview with the Guardian, Chen said that he was worried about his health, the safety of relatives still in his hometown, and his lack of communication with the outside world.
"I can't go out. No friends visit me. For a time, my cellphone did not work last night, so I worry so much about my relatives back home. There are many people around my home with sticks and they have installed closed-circuit cameras. I heard they are putting an electric fence around my home."
Chen's dramatic escape from 19 months of illegal house arrest in led to days of difficult negotiations between US and Chinese officials. The US ambassador Gary Locke said: "He knew and was very aware that he might have to spend many, many years in the embassy. But he was prepared to do that. And he was fully aware of and talked about what might happen to his family if he stayed in the embassy and they stayed in the village in Shandong province."
Locke added: "He made it very clear from the beginning that he wanted to stay in China, that he wanted to be part of the struggle to improve human rights within China."
The ambassador said the deal included the family's relocation to another part of China where Chen would be able to study law at university and a promise that authorities would investigate the complaints of abuse.
But after Chen was reunited with his wife and children at the Beijing hospital, her account of threats from officials and warnings from friends about the risks the family faced appear to have changed his mind.
US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that the family "have had a change of heart about whether they want to stay in China" and said officials needed to talk further with Chen about options.
Many analysts were sceptical that China would allow the family to leave, although Steve Tsang, an expert on Chinese politics at Nottingham University, said he thought it was still possible. But he warned: "Public diplomacy or grandstanding will limit the scope for quiet diplomacy."
US officials were present at the hospital ? now ringed by police ? but by lunchtime on Thursday had not seen Chen in person. An Obama administration official later said his wife came out of the facility for a long talk with US embassy officials.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin denied Chen had been held under house arrest, saying: "After Chen Guangcheng's release from prison he was a free person, as far as I know. He has been living in his home town." China has criticised the US for interfering, and demanded an apology from US diplomats.
Clinton, opening bilateral talks in Beijing, did not mention Chen specifically, but noted: "Of course, as part of our dialogue, the United States raises the importance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. We believe all governments have to answer our citizens' aspirations for dignity and the rule of law and that no nation can or should deny those rights."
The Chinese Human Rights Defenders network reported that police seized prominent human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong outside Chaoyang hospital. His telephone was switched off on Thursday evening. The activist He Peirong, who drove Chen away from Shandong, is still missing. Concern for her safety was raised at the Congressional hearing.
US military publishes memorandums between Osama Bin Laden and his subordinates that detail how al-Qaida reshaped strategy
Crippling US drone attacks forced Osama bin Laden to consider withdrawing his fighters from what had previously been safe havens in Pakistan, according to newly released documents seized at the compound where the al-Qaida leader was killed a year ago.
Memorandums between Bin Laden and his subordinates, made public by the US military's Combating Terrorism Center on Thursday, also revealed that with support eroding in the Muslim world because of the large number of civilians killed by al-Qaida and its affiliates, he wanted to focus "every bow and arrow" at US targets even at the expense of attacks on other countries, such as Britain, and Nato forces. Bin Laden said it would be a good idea to kill Barack Obama because then an "utterly unprepared" Joe Biden would become president.
But while the al-Qaida leader plotted the downfall of the US, he was forced to acknowledge that American drone attacks were taking a toll on his followers in Afghanistan and Pakistan's Waziristan region, and to contemplate withdrawing forces. He wrote:
Bin Laden said the air attacks made it necessary to keep reserves back from the "front line".
"The reserves will not, for the most part, be effective in such conflicts. Basically, we could lose the reserves to enemy's air strikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives!" he said.
He also said that commanders with experience needed to be got out of the area:
In another document, the al-Qaida leader recommends his fighters keep "a low profile":
.
For all of that, Bin Laden asserted that the US was losing in Afghanistan:
Another document, likely to have been written by Bin Laden but possibly another senior leader, calls for a refocusing on the United States as a target.
It says that America should be driven from the Islamic world in part so it "could not threaten or defeat any state which we create". The document said that to reach that goal attacks on Washington's allies, such as Britain, and Nato should largely be abandoned in order to concentrate on the US.
The writer likens America to a tree trunk with branches that represent its Nato allies and friendly governments in the Arab world:
.
Bin Laden proposed assassinating Obama in order to bring Biden, described as "utterly unprepared", to power and throw the US into chaos. He ordered his forces to create two teams that could hit Obama if he travelled to Pakistan or Afghanistan. The then-US military commander in Afghanistan, general David Petraeus, was also a favoured target.
The American al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn in one document discusses how to win support in the US and other countries. He says that the cause is not helped by attacks such as a massacre by al-Qaida of worshippers at a Baghdad Catholic church. He said that Catholics are more likely than other Christians to be more sympathetic to Muslims and causes supported by al-Qaida, including over Palestine. He wrote:
.
Outside of the Middle East, Gadahn proposed focusing on winning support in Ireland, partly in the hope that anger toward the Catholic church over child abuse might turn people toward Islam. He wrote:
Osama bin LadenUS militaryal-QaidaPakistanAfghanistanUnited StatesUS foreign policyGlobal terrorismNatoguardian.co.ukNews, World news, Chris McGreal, Julian BurgessThu, 03 May 2012 18:41:00 GMT2012-05-03T21:33:12Z
Gunmen open fire on cattle traders in Potiskum market, north-east Nigeria, killing up to 50 people
Up to 50 people were killed in a livestock market in north-east Nigeria after traders set fire to a suspected member of Boko Haram, triggering reprisal attacks amid a surge in violence from the radical Islamist sect.
"A number of armed men shot their way into the market early on Wednesday afternoon. I don't know whether they were trying to steal cattle or money, because the cattle dealers carry a lot of money with them," said Abdul Aziz, a money changer in the remote Potiskum market, which attracts crowds from neighbouring Chad and Niger.
"One of the gunmen was caught and burned to death using a tyre and oil. People said the men were Boko Haram but there is a lot of anger and everybody is so scared these days," Aziz added.
Hours after the first attack, a larger group of armed men surrounded the market and opened fire, witnesses said. A police spokesman, Toyin Gbadegesin, said: "At this point, it became a large scale attack ? about 30 people were killed and the same number were injured."
A police officer at the scene put the death toll higher, saying at least 50 people were killed. "It's possible many more perished because families came to remove their dead," he said. "There are at least 20 burnt-out cars and [dead] animals scattered everywhere. Some people were trampled."
Abou Diawa, a cattle trader from Chad, said he hid in a lorry full of oxen during the shooting spree. "They started throwing explosives as we were closing for the day. Everybody started running. There was gunfire everywhere, they were even shooting cattle. These people were madmen," he said.
Boko Haram says it is fighting to establish an Islamic state in Africa's most populous country, whose 160 million citizens are split evenly between Muslim and Christian. Yobe state, one of its northern strongholds, has borne the brunt of attacks in an insurgency that has claimed almost 500 lives this year.
The latest suspected attack comes days after the group released a video celebrating a suicide bombing on the headquarters of a local newspaper and a warning to the media that they risked becoming targets if they published articles against the sect.
Officials said crude explosives made using tin cans found on Wednesday had been found at the scene previous Boko Haram attacks, but they were hesitant to confirm the organisation had carried out the Potiskum shootout.
While the sect frequently raids banks in the north to fund their activities, cattle raiders often swoop on markets after distracting traders by causing a commotion. Ethnic clashes are also frequent amid scarce land and water resources for the largely pastoral population in the north.
Bombings and drive-by shootings that target government institutions and police officials are typical of attacks by Boko Haram, but the group has recently turned its sights to media publications, churches and universities.
Last week, a wave of violence left some 30 people dead after a suicide bomber rammed into a newspaper office in the capital, Abuja, and gunmen attacked a university in Kano.
The government is struggling to rein in an increase in attacks after recent attempts at opening mediation talks floundered.
In their questioning of several former aides, lawyers for John Edwards tried to cast doubt on the honesty of the lead witness in the federal government?s corruption trial.
Edwards, JohnBy WILLIAM DUPRE and KIM SEVERSON, Thu, 03 May 2012 20:16:31 GMT
Los Angeles?s decision to stop impounding the cars of all unlicensed drivers has heartened supporters of legislation granting driver?s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Illegal ImmigrantsDrivers LicensesLos Angeles Police DepartmentLaw and LegislationTraffic and Parking ViolationsLos Angeles (Calif)By JENNIFER MEDINA, Thu, 03 May 2012 17:50:05 GMT
TUCSON ? Richard Carmona, the Democratic candidate for senator from Arizona, had a rough childhood in New York City. His Puerto Rican parents had drug and alcohol problems, and he was homeless for a time. He dropped out of high school and went to Vietnam, where he won two Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars.
Soon, probably next week, Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy will sign into a law a bill that abolishes the death penalty in his state. When he does, Connecticut will be the fifth state to enact such legislation in as many years ? and the third with a governor who was raised Roman Catholic.
March 24th is a landmark date for Washington, D.C. Thousands will converge on the world?s leading capital city to celebrate the crowning human virtue of reason.
How have we come to the point where reason needs a rally to defend it? To base your life on reason means to base it on evidence and logic. Evidence is the only way we know to discover what?s true about the real world. Logic is how we deduce the consequences that follow from evidence. Who could be against either? Alas, plenty of people, which is why we need the Reason Rally.
We?ll know more on Friday when the jobs report is announced, but Thursday's report on America?s massive service sector ? which make up about 90 percent of the economy ? is sobering to say the least.
The Institute of Supply Management?s non-manufacturing index fell to a four-month low in April (53.5, down from 56 in March ? still positive territory but just barely). New orders dropped to their lowest level in six months.
That doesn?t bode well, especially when combined with other recent data. The Commerce Department reports that the economy as a whole has slowed from the last quarter of 2011 when it was expanding at an annual rate of 3 percent, to 2.2 percent for the first quarter of this year. And last month?s unemployment report showing only 120,000 new jobs in March was downright alarming.
What?s going on? Europe is sliding into recession, and gas prices are still high. But the real problem lies closer to home. Cuts in government spending are reducing domestic demand precisely at the time when consumers are reaching the end of their ropes and can?t spend more.
Consumers did all the spending they could in the first quarter. Household purchases increased 2.9 percent between January and March. That was the biggest increase since the last quarter of 2010.
Ever since ?90210?s? Donna Martin held on to hers for seven seasons, adult virginity -- the state of having it and the act of losing it -- has been a recurring plot point on TV dramas, and not just ones set in high school. The rules that apply to virginity in characters of a certain age are more or less the same ones that apply to Chekhov?s famous gun: If it appears in the first season, it will probably go off by the third, or the fourth, or the seventh, just as it did for Donna Martin. There are currently three fictional adults ? or two adults and a self-identified ?Girl? ? grappling with their virginities with varying amounts of shame in big-name TV shows. (Shame-free virginity: not currently a fictional TV offering.)
You know what you call someone who demands sex after a partner refuses? Who forces a person to have sex? Whose victim has to escape out a window and call the police? Someone who, according to news accounts, faces charges of "sexual assault and illegal restraint"? You call that person an alleged sex offender. Or, if you're the UK Mirror and the assailant is a female, you just call her a nymphomaniac.
As first reported in the Canadian site the Province last month ? complete with a snuggly picture of a happy couple in bed ? a 43-year-old German man told Munich police he had met the 47-year-old woman in a bar, went home with her, and had sex a few times. But when he said he'd had enough, she demanded more and refused to let him leave. He then fled out a balcony and called the cops. The Mirror then picked up the tale -- this time along with a coy image of a pair of feet in bed ? and described the woman as an "insatiable lover." She then allegedly struck again early this week, leaving a second man who'd gone home with her after a chance meeting on a bus "sobbing in the street" and pleading to police, "Oh God, it was hell. I can?t walk. Please help me." She has reportedly now been placed under psychiatric evaluation.
Americans Elect is a weird experiment in applying a lot of money and time and resources into proving a common elite myth: That Americans as a whole are crying out for "bold," nonpartisan political leadership, and that their strong desire for moderate, independent solutions is stifled by the two-party system. So far, the organization has managed to win presidential ballot access in 26 states, which is a remarkable achievement. The only problem is, it has no candidate. And the process it developed to select a candidate is turning out to be a big, hilarious mess.
So any Americans Elect delegate can "draft" a candidate, and any eligible citizen can declare him- or herself a candidate, but AE has a high bar for a candidate to be declared "qualified" to actually run in its online primary: "Insiders" require 10,000 clicks -- 1,000 people in at least 10 states -- of support from delegates. "Outsiders" require 50,000. Thus far, Ron Paul, a drafted candidate, has received 8,753 clicks. Buddy Roemer, a declared candidate, has 4,389. In other words, no one is close to being qualified, and the massive grass-roots support AE expected did not really pan out. The first "caucus" vote, scheduled for next week, has been canceled. The next vote, set for May 22, is reportedly "in jeopardy."
After a Navy SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden at his Pakistan hideout a year ago this week, it flew his body to the Arabian Sea, weighted it down, and slid it silently off an aircraft carrier into the watery depths.
For many Americans, the secret raid provided a measure of revenge and catharsis for the strikes of Sept. 11, 2001. But it didn?t provide the kind of justice and official reckoning that the country needs to gain real closure. Now the government has a chance to achieve that through a full, fair and open trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants, so the world can finally see the evidence against him as the true architect of the attacks on New York and Washington. The trial kickoff -- an arraignment for the men ? is scheduled for this Saturday at the U.S.-run detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
This should be our Nuremburg, the defining trial of the 9/11 era and a fitting coda to it.
Unfortunately, the U.S. government appears to be on the verge of squandering this opportunity, and with it, the best, and perhaps only, chance for the public to understand not only how the attacks came to be, but why Mohammed waged a relentless war against America and how we might stop the next would-be terrorist mastermind.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to mourn a sad loss. A luminous, unique presence who ably graced our lives and then was snuffed out far too early. A moment of silence, please, for Kate Hudson's career.
It seems like only yesterday we were beguiled by the lively, bohemian Penny Lane in "Almost Famous." But it's been a tragic and painful decade since, as I know many of you gathered here can bear witness. Those of you who steadfastly supported Hudson over the years, who paid good money for "Bride Wars," for "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," for "Raising Helen," "You Me & Dupree," "Fool's Gold," "My Best Friend's Girl," "Alex and Emma," "Le Divorce," and "Something Borrowed" -- you know what I'm talking about. You're heroes for sticking around this long. That's why it's both tragic and necessary to come to the end of our journey now, to let her go off to a better place. The D-list. It's called "A Little Bit of Heaven."
This seems like an odd moment for the Republican National Committee to start worrying about Ron Paul.
Now well into his second campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, he still has yet to win a single statewide Republican primary or caucus, and he?ll presumably be trounced by Mitt Romney in the remaining contests on this year?s docket. More to the point, the political world stopped paying attention to Paul about two months ago, and the threat of him bolting the GOP and running as an independent ? a scenario long feared by Republicans ? passed long ago.
And yet, the RNC?s chief counsel felt the need this week to issue a warning to the Nevada state GOP about the Paul campaign. At issue is this weekend?s Nevada Republican convention, where delegates to the national convention will be chosen. The state?s caucuses in February were a truly messy (that?s the polite word) affair, but Romney was the clear and overwhelming winner.
The Williams River was so languid and lovely last Saturday morning that it was almost impossible to imagine the violence with which it must have been running on August 28, 2011. And yet the evidence was all around: sand piled high on its banks, trees still scattered as if by a giant?s fist, and most obvious of all, a utilitarian temporary bridge where for 140 years a graceful covered bridge had spanned the water.
The YouTube video of that bridge crashing into the raging river was Vermont?s iconic image from its worst disaster in memory, the record flooding that followed Hurricane Irene?s rampage through the state in August 2011. It claimed dozens of lives, as it cut more than a billion-dollar swath of destruction across the eastern United States.
I watched it on TV in Washington just after emerging from jail, having been arrested at the White House during mass protests of the Keystone XL pipeline. Since Vermont?s my home, it took the theoretical -- the ever more turbulent, erratic and dangerous weather that the tar sands pipeline from Canada would help ensure -- and made it all too concrete. It shook me bad.
Last week, the Romney campaign finally broke its silence on an advisor's role in a growing scandal. A report released last night shows why it had to.
In September, Mitt Romney named former National Labor Relations Board Chairman Peter Schaumber as the co-chair of his campaign?s Labor Policy Advisory Committee. Then in March, the NLRB?s inspector general named Schaumber as the recipient of leaked confidential info from current NLRB member Terence Flynn ? and the Romney campaign avoided comment for a month.
Last Thursday, Rep. Elijah Cummings announced that the IG would be releasing a follow-up report, and was referring his findings to the Office of Special Counsel ?for potential Hatch Act violations due to Mr. Schaumber?s role as a senior advisor? to Romney. (The Hatch Act bans public officials from using government access to advance political campaigns.) The new report, released last night by the House Education and Workforce Committee Democrats, is a sequel that truly outdoes the original.
A number of reports have pointed out that the Occupy calls for a May Day general strike drew tens of thousands in the street Tuesday -- with actions from the militant to the family-minded -- in cities across the country, particularly in New York and Oakland, Calif. The culmination of scheduled action in New York -- a mass march of around 30,000 union workers, immigrant workers and OWS supporters that descended (with a permit) on Manhattan's financial district -- felt powerful from within, as chanting bodies jostled south. But I jumped over the barricades, which hemmed in the crowd, and walked a few blocks away. Only a muffled din signaled the crowd's presence nearby; that and the constant flow of riot cops flooding past me and the police vans lining the street as far as the eye could see.
Richard Grenell, a foreign policy spokesman for Mitt Romney, resigned on Tuesday after an unexpectedly messy and public dispute over his role and reputation.
Presidential Election of 2012Republican PartyGrenell, RichardRomney, MittBy MICHAEL BARBARO, HELENE COOPER and ASHLEY PARKER, Thu, 03 May 2012 21:31:22 GMT
For President Obama, the days leading up to his re-election kickoff have been spent straddling the precarious line between hawk and dove, and possibly redefining his party for years to come.
United States Defense and Military ForcesObama, BarackUnited States International RelationsPresidential Election of 2012Afghanistan War (2001- )By PETER BAKER, Thu, 03 May 2012 18:00:42 GMT
At 24 years old, sleeping alone for the first time.
Families and Family Life (Des);Immigration and EmigrationNew York CitySleepWashington HeightsFamilies and Family LifeWashington Heights (NYC)TowniesBy GISSELLE PEREZ, Thu, 03 May 2012 16:00:39 GMT
Tired of the same old presidential campaign? Time to tune in on the action-packed battles for the Senate.
United States Politics and GovernmentSenateMontanaNorth DakotaMassachusettsIndianaElections, SenateRehberg, Dennis RTester, JonBerg, RickHeitkamp, HeidiLugar, Richard GMourdock, Richard EBrown, Scott PWarren, ElizabethPresidential Election of 2012By GAIL COLLINS, Thu, 03 May 2012 18:27:01 GMT
Scientists warn that chemicals we?re exposed to every day can cause genital deformities and even breast cancer. Is our government paying attention?
HormonesHazardous and Toxic SubstancesBisphenol A (BPA)Regulation and Deregulation of IndustryResearchPlasticsBreast CancerEndocrine GlandUnited StatesEndocrine Reviews (Journal)Endocrine SocietyMyers, John PetersonVandenberg, LauraBirnbaum, Linda SBy NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, Thu, 03 May 2012 20:36:20 GMT
Barack ObamaMitt RomneySupreme CourtSupreme Court NomineesAppointments and Executive ChangesPresidential Election of 2012By CHARLES M. BLOW, Thu, 03 May 2012 15:44:17 GMT
By proposing quick-fix methods to pay for only a year?s worth of loan subsidies, Congress is not being serious about helping students afford college.
Federal Aid (US)United States Politics and GovernmentStudent LoansFederal Taxes (US)Democratic PartySenateRepublican PartyHouse of RepresentativesEditorialsFederal Budget (US), Thu, 03 May 2012 18:03:03 GMT
Instead of humbling its audience through the shock of recognition, the revival of ?Death of a Salesman? confers upon those who can afford to see it a feeling of superiority.
Miller, ArthurTheaterDeath of a Salesman (Play)Income InequalityBy LEE SIEGEL, Thu, 03 May 2012 18:16:08 GMT
What came through in the Supreme Court's oral arguments over Arizona's immigration law was the failure to affirm the simple humanity of the state's undocumented residents.
immigrationSupreme CourtArizona Immigration Law (SB 1070)ArizonaLinda GreenhouseBy LINDA GREENHOUSE, Thu, 03 May 2012 01:00:06 GMT
Who will be the new mayor of London? One of the old ones.
London (England)Conservative Party (Great Britain)Labour Party (Great Britain)Livingstone, KenJohnson, BorisPolls and Public OpinionMayorsBy A. A. GILL, Thu, 03 May 2012 18:10:05 GMT
Brooks and Collins compare the social ethic of the Midwest to the mores of the East and Steak ?N Shake to White Castle.
methrural lifeSteak 'n Shakesuburbiathe country and the cityWhite CastleThe ConversationBy DAVID BROOKS and GAIL COLLINS, Thu, 03 May 2012 00:39:38 GMT
Empirical evidence of a connection between homophobia and suppressed same-sex desire.
HomosexualityJournal of Personality and Social PsychologyPsychology and PsychologistsDiscriminationHaggard, TedCraig, Larry EMurphy, GlennBy RICHARD M. RYAN and WILLIAM S. RYAN, Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:12:06 GMT
A Catholic Church more horrified by nuns advocating for the poor than priests attacking children.
NunsLeadership Conference of Women ReligiousRoman Catholic ChurchDolan, Timothy MBenedict XVILynn, William J IIISmith, Thomas JSex CrimesChild Abuse and NeglectBirth Control and Family PlanningHomosexualitySartain, James PeterBy MAUREEN DOWD, Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:48:30 GMT
There are ?babyloids? and relatives-for-rent in an increasingly childless Japan.
JapanPopulationBirth RatesThe Children of Men (Book)Eberstadt, NicholasEconomic Conditions and TrendsImmigration and EmigrationUnited StatesJames, P DBy ROSS DOUTHAT, Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:49:49 GMT
There is a highly revealing graffiti war going on in the streets of Beirut that?s sending interesting messages to Assad and Nasrallah.
LebanonSyriaAssad, Bashar al-Nasrallah, HassanMiddle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )Demonstrations, Protests, and RiotsInternational RelationsBy THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Thu, 03 May 2012 16:59:00 GMT
Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, challenges outside political ads, but it will be an uphill fight. Republican interest groups are outspending her by 3 to 1.
United States Politics and GovernmentPolitical AdvertisingPolitical Action CommitteesCampaign FinanceMcCaskill, ClaireObama, BarackSenateHouse of RepresentativesCrossroads Grassroots Policy StrategiesPresidential Election of 2012ElectionsMissouri, Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:04:55 GMT
The president who won the Nobel Peace Prize has turned out to be one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades.
Obama, BarackPresidents and Presidency (US)TerrorismDrones (Pilotless Planes)Presidential Election of 2012United States Defense and Military Forcesbin Laden, OsamaAl QaedaUnited States International RelationsBy PETER L. BERGEN, Thu, 03 May 2012 15:29:00 GMT
Your smartphone keeps track of where you are, what you like and who your peers are, all of which can be leveraged to sell you things you never knew you needed.
Computers and the InternetCellular TelephonesShopping and RetailMobile ApplicationsPersonal FinancesSmartphonesGoogle Inc|GOOG|NASDAQPayPalSquare IncWePay.comBlockchainStarbucks Corporation|SBUX|NASDAQeBay Inc|EBAY|NASDAQHome Depot Inc|HD|NYSEBy SOMINI SENGUPTA, Thu, 03 May 2012 19:29:00 GMT
After examining presidencies going back to Dwight Eisenhower, and figuring out both the expected and actual voter-approval ratings for those White House occupants, a political scientist concluded that President Obama is actually outperforming the favorability rating history would predict.
A new analysis of TV ads so far this election cycle finds that 70 percent of the messages have been negative ? a trend spearheaded by the heavily financed superPACs supporting the candidates. At this point in the 2008 election, 91 percent of TV ads were positive.
A small-town mayor in Utah is trying to make congressional history. Mia Love wants to become the first black Republican woman in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has her party's nomination, and if elected, vows to bring conservative principles to the Congressional Black Caucus.
To truly improve K-12 education, Washington state must change from a staff-based to a subjects-based model of school funding, writes Susan Goding, a school board director with the Highline School District.
You have to wonder why some gay advocates remain loyal Republicans, writes Froma Harrop, even as social conservatives drag the party back to the early 20th century.
We can't spend the next six months fixated on the presidential mudslinging, writes Gail Collins. With Senate campaigns, she adds, you actually learn something. Such as ...
In the Supreme Court deliberations over the Affordable Care Act, guest columnist Diane Sosne says it is critical not to lose sight of the essential issue: Health-care coverage saves lives.
Closing times are much like the May Day protest, which police handled very well because they planned for it. Seattle's police and mayor pretty much know what to expect at a protest or, in this case, at last call. No need to change statewide 2 a.m. bar closing times.
The U.S. gave $13.5 million in college scholarships to Lebanese kids and $1.3 billion in tanks and fighter jets for Egypt's military, writes Thomas L. Friedman. Guess which aid program produces friendship and stability?
When we last checked in with former New York city mayor and past Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, he was screaming "911!" at passing cars while rattling a tin cup. Not much has changed since, but here's what he has to say about Presumptive Candidate Mitt:
?It?s a war that continues that we have to still be vigilant about,? Giuliani continued. ?Governor Romney certainly understands that and has from the very beginning been a leader in the effort to make certain that America remains safe.?
Wait, what? Gov. Romney has been "a leader" in the effort to make America safe? Not to get all technical here, but how do ya figure, sport?
Was it the Bain Capital days that established Mitt Romney as an anti-terrorism leader? Did he issue a slew of makin'-America-safe resolutions as Massachusetts governor that the rest of us never quite heard about? Maybe it was the Olympics; there's a whole lot of ethnic people in the Olympics, so maybe that counts as foreign policy experience. Or his innovations in high-speed pet quarantine? Is his Cayman Islands money secretly an elite team of terrorist-thumping commandos that sneak out of their vaults every night to hunt down members of al Qaeda and give them really nasty paper cuts? Help us out, Rudy, you're going to have to be a bit more specific here.
Yes, Mitt's the nominee now, but I think any efforts to build up his foreign policy credentials maybe ought to be a wee less hamhanded than Giuliani's attempt. Given that Mitt's recent expressions of expertise in the subject consist of "whatever Obama did, I wouldn't have done that" and "don't hire a gay foreign policy spokesman because it makes my base very, very crabby," I'd say those attempting to flatter Mitt on the subject have their work cut out for them.
2012Mitt RomneyRudy GiulianiWed, 02 May 2012 23:36:58 UTC
Without exception, since 1960, the winner of the White House has won at least two of the Big Three battleground states: Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It's hard to picture a presidential contest that doesn't revolve around those three states, and indeed, those three states are among the top four in Obama campaign field offices to date: Ohio (20), Virginia (17), Pennsylvania (14), and Florida (13).
Yet the rise of the Latino electorate is shifting the nation's balance of power, giving rise to a more electorally relevant Southwest?a combination of blistering population growth and pro-Democratic demographic shifts.
In 1960, the states of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona totalled 17 electoral votes. Today, they total 31. And while in 1960 Ohio and Pennsylvania had 57 electoral votes between the two, today that number is just 38 (though if you include Florida, the total has remained at a constant 67).
What this all means is that if Democrats sweep the competitive Southwestern states, Ohio, Penn and Florida become that much less important. Let's start with a base map, plus giving Obama Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. I gave Missouri to the GOP, and Wisconsin and Michigan to Obama because those are marginal swing states?if Obama wins Missouri, he's already crushed on the rest of the map, and vice a versa with Wisconsin and Michigan.
As you can see, sweeping those Southwestern states puts Obama just 17 electoral votes shy of victory, while Romney is a whopping 90 electoral votes out. Indeed, Romney could sweep the Big Three, and look what it does:
The race is still not decided, with Romney still 23 electoral votes shy of victory?something no single state will provide. At that point, it's a matter of math?several combinations do the trick. But note, Virginia has consistently given Obama some of his biggest polling margins to date. Romney would have to sweep North Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire to win the race.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Obama will lose the Big Three, or that they're not important. They are still likely to be the hardest fought states this cycle. And I'm also not suggesting that Arizona is in the bag for Team Blue. It still leans Red. But changing population patterns and demographics (mostly Latinos) are evolving the electoral college map. There are new paths to victory.
And by broadening the playing field (Arizona this year, and Texas, Georgia and Montana in future cycles), and locking down old battlegrounds (Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and possibly Wisconsin and Michigan) the GOP's path to presidential victory becomes increasingly complicated.
2012Barack ObamaElectionsMitt RomneyPresidentRecommendedThu, 03 May 2012 19:03:00 UTC
Barack Obama gives us his new campaign commercial, Forward, in which he celebrates the expansion of fossil fuels like crude oil and gas. How is that forward?!?
Since the morning of May 1, when Americans Elect was forced to cancel its first primary vote due to a very low participation rate, there have been just 72 posts on Twitter (“tweets”) using the hashtag #AmericansElect. Here’s a breakdown …
A plan to kill hundreds of wolves in Wyoming was announced this week. As hatred of wolves is growing, level headed Americans have a responsibility to encourage a more balanced view.
The world?s largest phone maker released details about the latest smartphone in its Galaxy S line, which has been instrumental to its success in the smartphone market.
CellphonesGalaxy SSamsungSmartphonesSamsung GroupMobileBy BRIAN X. CHEN, Thu, 03 May 2012 19:07:03 GMT
Microsoft has a plan to sell its Xbox game system more the way it would a cellphone, giving customers a break on the cost of the device as long as they commit to pay a monthly service bill.
gamingMicrosoftXboxComputer and Video GamesXbox 360 (Video Game System)Microsoft CorporationMicrosoft Corporation|MSFT|NASDAQDevicesBy NICK WINGFIELD, Thu, 03 May 2012 18:18:11 GMT
Revelations in the United States that a Google employee had informed colleagues that his program would collect personal data has cast doubt on the company?s excuses.
Google Inc|GOOG|NASDAQPrivacyRegulation and Deregulation of IndustryEuropeEuropean UnionEuropean CommissionFederal Communications CommissionUnited StatesGermanyFranceGreat BritainBy KEVIN J. O’BRIEN, Thu, 03 May 2012 20:38:27 GMT
Serious music lovers probably fancy digital music servers ? a jukebox for digital music files, a hard drive to store the files and software to pump it through an existing stereo system.
An anonymous reader writes "If you're running a terrorist organization, it might make sense to encrypt your files. Clearly Osama Bin Laden didn't realize that — as some of the documents seized during the raid on his hideout in Pakistan have been made public for the first time. 17 electronic documents, which were found on USB sticks, memory cards and computer hard drives after US Navy Seals killed the terrorist chief in the May 2011 raid, are being released in their original Arabic alongside English translations by the Combating Terrorism Center, reports Sophos."
milbournosphere writes "New York Judge Gary Brown has found that IP addresses don't provide enough evidence to identify pirates, and wrote an extensive argument explaining his reasoning. A quote from the judge's order: 'While a decade ago, home wireless networks were nearly non-existent, 61% of U.S. homes now have wireless access. As a result, a single IP address usually supports multiple computer devices – which unlike traditional telephones can be operated simultaneously by different individuals. Different family members, or even visitors, could have performed the alleged downloads. Unless the wireless router has been appropriately secured (and in some cases, even if it has been secured), neighbors or passersby could access the Internet using the IP address assigned to a particular subscriber and download the plaintiff's film.' Perhaps this will help to stem the tide of frivolous mass lawsuits being brought by the RIAA and other rights-holders where IP addresses are the bulk of the 'evidence' suggested."
An anonymous reader writes "I have at least 10 assorted hard drives ranging from 100 GB to 3 TB, and including external drives, IDE desktop drives, laptop drives, etc. What's the best way to setup a home NAS to utilize all this 'excess' space? And could it be setup with redundancy built-in so a single drive failure would cause no data loss? I don't need anything fancy. Visibility to networked Windows PCs is great; ability to streak to Roku / iPad / Toshiba etc would be great but not necessary. What's the best way to accomplish this goal?"
An anonymous reader writes "Today Bethesda announced that their popular Elder Scrolls series of video games will be getting its own MMORPG. It's planned for 2013, and will be available for PCs and Macs. 'Players will discover an entirely new chapter of Elder Scrolls history in this ambitious world, set a millennium before the events of Skyrim as the daedric prince Molag Bal tries to pull all of Tamriel into his demonic realm. "It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years," said game director and MMO veteran Matt Firor, whose previous work includes Mythic's well-received Dark Age of Camelot. "The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise."'"
ideonexus writes "NFL Linebacker Junior Seau's suicide this week bares a striking similarity to NFL Safety Dave Duerson's suicide last year, who shot himself in the chest so that doctors could study his brain, where they found the same chronic traumatic encephalopathy that has been found in the brains of 20 other dead football players. Malcom Gladwell stirred up controversy in 2009 by comparing professional football to dog fighting for the trauma the game inflicts on players' brains, but with mounting evidence that the repeated concussions football players receive during their careers causing a lifetime of brain problems, it raises serious concerns about America's most popular sport and ethical questions for its fanbase."
Now, it appears that this is just a test, but just the fact that Google is thinking about it seems like a bad idea. Wheaton makes the point pretty clearly: even though he's a regular Google Plus user, he knows that this will decrease overall engagement:
Oh, go fuck yourself, Google. This is just as bad as companies forcing me to “like” something on Facebook before I can view whatever it is they want me to “like.”
Just let me thumbs up something, without forcing me to “upgrade” to G+, you dickheads.
The worst part of this? For a producer like me, I’m going to lose a crapton of potential upvotes for Tabletop, because the core of my audience is tech-savvy and may not want to “upgrade” to yet another fucking social network they don’t want or need.
At this point, it's well known that Google is betting heavily on Google+, but it may be overplaying its hand. A key reason why people like Google is that it didn't seem heavy-handed on such things in the past, and focused on having as open and permissive a solution as it could. Yet, in this case, it appears to be doing the opposite just to drive more (unwanted) usage toward Google Plus. Of course, the reality is that people who don't want to sign up for it won't sign up for it... and that will just lead to less engagement. And that's probably exactly the opposite of what Google really wants.
If you feel the need to force your users into using your own social network, perhaps you're doing it wrong.
Amidst all the recent talk of just how successful Kickstarter has been as a platform for creators raising money, some people have suggested that the company may run into problems down the road because it seems ripe for fraud. Of course, most things are ripe for fraud in one way or another, so Kickstarter isn't exactly special in that regard—and when fraud does happen, people will fight it just like they do anywhere else.
At least, that was certainly the case with a recent video game project on Kickstarter that turned out to be fake. As BetaBeat reports, the crowdsourcing scam was exposed by a crowdsourced investigation:
... a campaign for an action video game, MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods and Men, has just been busted by forum users at Reddit, SomethingAwful and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The creators claimed to be an independent studio, “Little Monster Productions,” of 12 industry veterans in Hollywood. “Our team has done a significant amount of work on the World of Warcraft series as well as Diablo 2 and the original Starcraft,” says the project page.
Bullshit, said the Internet. Turns out the art was cribbed, the text for backer rewards was copied and pasted from another Kickstarter project, and even the office photos were from another game studio, Burton Design Group.
When people brought their accusations to the Kickstarter comments, the developers made a few weak attempts at deflection then quietly shut down having raised just under $5,000 (far short of their goal, so that money won't actually be released). With Kickstarter gaining more attention every day, we're sure to see more attempts at scams—and maybe even some successes—but with a savvy community that polices itself like this, the scammers face an uphill battle.
Swizz Beatz, one of the most well-known, well-respected music producers around -- who was very briefly listed as the CEO of Megaupload right before it was shut down by the US government -- was just interviewed on MTV about Megaupload, technology, file sharing and music and made a bunch of good points. When asked why the industry has been so slow to adopt what technology enables, and specifically about file sharing, which the interviewer notes is "so important in hip hop," he sums it up simply: it's all about greed by the labels.
I think the only reason why people wouldn't embrace technology is because of greed. And because of the old way of doing business, which is also greed. And then you have people running the business -- no disrespect -- that's 80 years plus. They don't even know how to operate an iPad, and they're making decisions on the younger generation's future.
And my association with forward thinking technology is very deep. And it came up a little bit with Megaupload -- which still, today, is a big misunderstanding of technology. And the day that you mix the old business with the new technology, we'll have a better place. It's actually going to be a time when artists can come out and do 10 million records their first week. Because the technology is going to be so locked in tight globally. You have billions of people, all over the world. Why can't artists that everybody likes do 10 million a week? It's just that the communication and the technology and the old way of doing business is off. But once that catches up, which is going to happen in the next three years, it's going to be amazing.
And the cool thing is that technology equals freedom for the artist. And that's the best thing that could ever happen for artists that work hard and that really want to get their career off the ground.
He's then asked a bit about "piracy" and actually getting people to buy, and he notes that if you make good music, people will support you. He says the problem is that people have gotten away from making good music. But when there is good music, people want to support "great music." He notes that people have no problem paying for those "timeless pieces," because they know they're supporting the artists. It's just that when musicians today are "bluffing," the public knows it, and isn't so interested in supporting it.
It's a good interview, and it's good to see more people -- especially in the hip hop world -- speaking out about this, rather than merely accepting the lines from the 80 year old execs at the music labels.
Update: Apparently, Swizz is feeling talkative these days. He also did a nice longer interview on a radio show where he talks a bit more about all of this, again saying that the Megaupload situation was a misunderstanding -- and talked about how he had figured out a way for musicians to make "wow money" but it won't happen now because of the "miscommunication" that has the US government making it look like they were breaking the law.
Facebook will be valued at US$85 billion to $95 billion, rather than the $100 billion that had been widely rumored, The Wall Street Journal reported reported Thursday.
A Windows developer, upset at the likely demise of Windows Live Writer as part of Microsoft's move to retire the Live brand, has launched an online petition drive to save the tool.
Apple's iPad reclaimed a larger share of the global tablet market last month, in part because of a more-serious-than-expected slump in sales of the hot Kindle Fire in the first quarter, IDC analysts said today.
Oracle and SAP are at odds over whether the concept of "hypothetical" software license fees can be factored into damages in the upcoming retrial of Oracle's intellectual-property lawsuit against SAP, and the outcome could sharply affect the scope of any judgment in the case.
The gene variant responsible for blondness in dark-skinned indigenous islanders is distinctly different from the gene that causes blond hair in Europeans, researchers report.
HairGenetics and HeredityResearchSolomon IslandsBy SINDYA N. BHANOO, Thu, 03 May 2012 19:37:55 GMT
Washington State and South Carolina are suing for a decision on a Nevada mountain?s suitability as a repository, even though the proposal has been declared dead.
Yucca Mountain (Nev)Nuclear WastesNuclear EnergyNuclear Regulatory CommissionSouth CarolinaWashington (State)By MATTHEW L. WALD, Thu, 03 May 2012 18:10:04 GMT
In recent years, climate change skeptics have seized on one last argument that cannot be so readily dismissed. Their theory is that clouds will save us.
Greenhouse Gas EmissionsLindzen, Richard SGlobal WarmingCarbon DioxideWeatherTemperatureEarthSeriesTemperature Rising (Series)By JUSTIN GILLIS, Thu, 03 May 2012 18:16:34 GMT
Earth-observing systems operated by the United States have entered a steep decline, imperiling the nation?s monitoring of weather, natural disasters and climate change, a report from the National Research Council warned Wednesday.
United States National Research CouncilWeatherSatellitesGlobal WarmingBy RACHEL NUWER, Thu, 03 May 2012 18:27:18 GMT
In a federal report, both system and human errors occurred, failures that one federal official called ?pretty basic things.?
Power Outages and BlackoutsFederal Energy Regulatory CommissionNorth American Electric Reliability CorpCaliforniaArizonaMexicoBy MATTHEW L. WALD, Thu, 03 May 2012 03:04:15 GMT
Henry�s Farm Inc. is expanding the recall of its Soybean Sprouts, to include Natto Soybean Sprouts, because they may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections to individuals with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
Smiling Hara of Asheville is voluntarily recalling 12-ounce packages of unpasteurized soybean tempeh because of possible contamination with salmonella.
The company is recalling tempeh manufactured this year between Jan. 11 and April 11.
Chad Oliphant, of Smiling Hara Tempeh has announced that the company was initiating a voluntary recall of all Smiling Hara products out of an abundance of caution. The products in question were manufactured between January 11, and April 11, 2012.
"Bloom," an extraordinary art installation by Anna Schuleit, paid tribute to the thousands of patients and staff members who passed through the now-defunct Massachusetts Mental Health Center.
ArtPauline ChenFlowers and PlantsHospitalsMental Health and DisordersDoctor and PatientFeaturedBy PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D., Thu, 03 May 2012 18:00:21 GMT
The United States is similar to developing countries in the percentage of mothers who give birth before their child is due, according to the World Health Organization and other agencies.
Premature BabiesTeenage PregnancyWomen and GirlsMedicine and HealthWorld Health OrganizationUnited StatesBy DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., Thu, 03 May 2012 21:23:04 GMT
Can you solve the mystery of a 56-year-old woman who goes for a routine eye exam but ends up with a diagnosis of a disease she had never heard of and never suspected?
Lisa Sandersthink like a doctorEyes and EyesightFeaturedThink Like a DoctorBy LISA SANDERS, M.D., Thu, 03 May 2012 17:34:56 GMT
If you are proactive against germs and plan for emergencies, you can protect your health when you travel.
Business TravelMedicine and HealthHealth Insurance and Managed CareAnxiety and StressExpedia Inc (Del)|EXPE|NASDAQBy J. PEDER ZANE, Thu, 03 May 2012 19:20:05 GMT
Being fastidious about the basics of cleanliness can reduce the odds of becoming ill while traveling.
Travel and VacationsDehydrationMedicine and HealthBusiness TravelAirlines and AirplanesHotels and MotelsBy J. PEDER ZANE, Thu, 03 May 2012 19:30:05 GMT
While the glaciers hold enough water to raise sea level feet by 20 feet, a new study says the runaway meltdown of Greenland's ice isn't happening as some had feared. This means a "worst-case scenario" of 6 feet of sea level rise by the end of this century is unlikely, a polar researcher says.
For decades, teachers, managers and parents have assumed that the performance of students and employees fits what's known as the bell curve ? in most activities, we expect a few people to be very good, a few people to be very bad and most people to be average. But new research argues that a lot of people are actually outliers.
Years after more than 40 patients with HIV received immune cells designed to attack and kill cells infected with HIV, the specialized cells are still present in their bloodstreams. There's been no sign the cells, a form of gene therapy, caused any serious side effects.
Normally for a few days in spring, beachgoers on this hook of land stretching into Cape Cod Bay witness one of the rarest scenes in the animal kingdom: dozens of surface-skimming North Atlantic right whales, lumbering just a few hundred yards from shore.
A senior Environmental Protection Agency official resigned Sunday in an effort to end the furor over his remarks two years ago that the EPA should make examples of polluters the way Romans crucified people to quash rebellions.
While violent, rotating thunderstorms spawn almost all of the most powerful tornadoes, most of them produce only weak twisters ? or none at all. Unfortunately, meteorologists can?t predict which of these swirling storms, known as supercells, will spin out damaging and deadly tornadoes, such as those that devastated Birmingham, Ala., and Joplin, Mo., last year.
Planetary scientist and Northern Virginia resident Tom Jones is an astronaut who flew on the space shuttle four times. With a long-standing interest in asteroids, Jones recently signed on as scientific adviser for a new company, Planetary Resources, which has a big, science-fiction-esque goal: profiting from raw materials in space. The company is bankrolled by space business veterans and bigwigs from Silicon Valley and Hollywood, including Google guys Larry Page and Eric Schmidt and filmmaker James Cameron. Jones spoke in a recent interview about this new venture and the future of life in space.
Close to 13 million users aren't using the social network's controls to protect their privacy, according to a study from Consumer Reports. And those who are may be getting it wrong.
Unsure about when to adopt a new technology? Do you think your old technology is "safer"? Maybe ... or perhaps sticking with it offers risks of its own. This article discusses some of the benefits of adopting Scala rather than staying with Java.
Brian Goetz recently provided new details on the status of JSR 335 in his OpenJDK document State of the Lambda: Libraries Edition. Project Lambda is a fundamentally important enhancement to Java 8. And, based on the response of developers in our recent poll asking how Lambda Expressions in Java 8 will affect their programming, the Java community is excited by the prospect of being able to implement closures in their applications.
A total of 437 votes were cast, along with a single comment. The exact question and results were:
To what extent do you expect Lambda Expressions (closures) in Java 8 to affect your programming?
34% (148 votes) - They'll have a huge effect
20% (88 votes) - They'll make some difference
16% (68 votes) - No immediate effect (who knows when I'll finally be using Java 8?)
9% (38 votes) - No effect, since closures aren't pertinent to the programming I do
15% (64 votes) - I don't know
7% (31 votes) - Other
These results (which, we recognize, are non-scientific) suggest that a great many Java developers consider the addition of Lambda Expressions to Java a very significant milestone.
Indeed, Java developers have been waiting for the inclusion of closures in Java for a very long time. Most of the long delay between Java 6 and Java 7 was filled with anticipation/hope that closures would be included in Java 7. However, as the years passed, and the uncertainty increased, the decision was ultimately made to split off some aspects of what was originally to be included in Java 7 into the next major release (i.e., Java 8), in order to facilitate getting key functionality out to the community sooner. I think most Java developers would agree this was a good decision (hmm.. this gives me an idea for a future poll!)...
But, getting back to this poll's results: a third of voters say Lambda Expressions will have a huge effect on their programming once Java 8 arrives; and more than half of the voters say closures will make at least some difference in their programming. We can assume that some of the 16% who selected "No immediate effect" will probably find Lambda Expressions useful once their platform reaches Java 8 (though that may be a long time from now).
rdohna wonders if there might be a bit too much enthusiasm for closures in Java, commenting:
They will be used even in cases where it only makes things more complicated than required.
Undoubtedly, that will happen in some cases. All the more reason to have experienced architects carefully communicating the design to the more junior developers...
In any case, it's been a long wait for closures / Lambda Expressions in Java. The wait isn't over yet, but it will be over soon; and developers are eagerly anticipating their arrival.
This is an informal overview of the major proposed library enhancements to take advantage of new language features, primarily lambda expressions and extension methods, specified by JSR 335 and implemented in the OpenJDK Lambda Project. This document describes the design approach taken in the rough prototype that has been implemented in the Lambda Project repository...
Fast Messenger Lite is available in JavaScript. This post lists links to three demos. The first demonstrates how to use active object in a regular html page. The second shows how active objects in UI and Web worker thread communicate. The third demo has two web workers, and again active objects in three threads can send messages to each other including web worker to web worker.
Recently, I've been investigating the methods Java provides for developing desktop applications that efficiently utilize multicore processors. Java 7's Fork/Join Framework is the current focus of my investigation. But, Brian Goetz has just provided an update on the State of the Lambda: Libraries Edition, which tells us lots about the current status of what's coming up in Java 8, where Project Lambda will introduce Lambda Expressions into Java.
It probably shouldn't be a big surprise, but implementing Lambda Expressions in Java 8 is going to have a very wide-ranging impact, on everything from the Collections framework to "laziness" to streams to parallelism to mutative operations... Brian takes the time to go into the details on these and other aspects of Lambda Expressions as the current work on Java 8 is progressing.
Brian states:
This document describes the design approach taken in the rough prototype that has been implemented in the Lambda Project repository. It is intended as a working straw-man proposal; the final version may look different, but there is a working design and implementation that may now serve as a jumping-off point for discussions.
If the implementation of Lambda Expressions in Java 8 is of considerable importance to you, this is a must read. The final implementation is no where near final at this point, and Brian is in essence asking people for suggestions. Take advantage of the offer to comment -- but, first, take the time to read Brian's State of the Lambda: Libraries Edition.
I attended my first Chennai Java Summit last weekend. The one-day conference had two parallel tracks. The conference was organized as part of AIOUG (All India Oracle User Group) and so there was a parallel track covering Oracle technologies as well...
Informatica Cloud Developer Edition provides systems integrators, ISVs with a Java-based programming interface for creating connectors to cloud services.
We list all the latest Java performance related news and articles. "G1 becomes official; a new jcmd command-line diagnostic tool; and finally we can get notified of garbage collections!"
The latest Java performance tips from around the web, such as "Statelessness scales forever. Scalability is all about loose coupling. Identify the single points of failure."
We list all the latest Java performance related news and articles. "Then we got ergonomic garbage collection algorithms which could vary the maximum heap size dynamically according to it's internal heuristics, and we were told that we shouldn't set ms to mx because this defeated the ergonomics"
I simply can?t imagine recommending any software that is built upon technologies that I would never use myself when architecting an enterprise solution. Java is a great programming language, but I have no time whatsoever for flaky and poorly functioning Java Applets trying to run within my browser, and nor should anyone else.
Responsive design is when your site automatically fits in the user?s device. So if the user has a small screen, the elements will rearrange to show you main things first. You?ll have bigger buttons, more blank space between elements to avoid accidental activation, and so forth.
The thing about developing in the cloud is that it's exactly the same as development that happens when you're not in the cloud, except for the times when things are different.
Firefox Live was created to raise awareness of the red panda species (aka ?firefox?) and their endangered status (in addition to sharing the cute cubs with the world). To help achieve this goal, we partnered with the Red Panda Network to promote preservation and to support their Forest Guardian program. On March 27, we will… Read more
Mozilla NewsWilliam ReynoldsThu, 22 Mar 2012 16:48:57 +0000
Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux adds new in-product developer tools that make it easier to visualize page elements. Firefox also expands Firefox Sync capabilities to let users sync add-ons across computers. Firefox includes new developer tools that represent the structure of websites in a new way and make it easier to live-edit CSS code.… Read more
FirefoxMozilla NewsMozillaTue, 13 Mar 2012 23:26:33 +0000
The Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition winners were announced yesterday at the Digital Media and Learning Conference in San Francisco. The winners?awarded grants ranging from $25,000 to $175,000 ?will use Mozilla’s new free and open source “Open Badges” software to issue, manage and display digital badges for learning across the Web. The competition brought… Read more
About MozillaMozilla NewsMark SurmanFri, 02 Mar 2012 04:20:44 +0000
I simply can?t imagine recommending any software that is built upon technologies that I would never use myself when architecting an enterprise solution. Java is a great programming language, but I have no time whatsoever for flaky and poorly functioning Java Applets trying to run within my browser, and nor should anyone else.
Responsive design is when your site automatically fits in the user?s device. So if the user has a small screen, the elements will rearrange to show you main things first. You?ll have bigger buttons, more blank space between elements to avoid accidental activation, and so forth.
The thing about developing in the cloud is that it's exactly the same as development that happens when you're not in the cloud, except for the times when things are different.
"Record-playback tools are almost always a bad idea for any kind of automation, since they resist changeability and obstruct useful abstractions. They are only worth having as a tool to generate fragments of scripts which you can then edit as a proper programming language, in the manner of Twist or Emacs.
"
The approach to developing a web site that supports multiple devices has historically meant recognizing the device type as the initial request comes in, and then using a set of resources that have been coded and tested with the specific device type in mind. As such, a separate set of web pages might be developed for a typical browser, while another set of JSP and HTML pages would be developed for and tested on a mobile device.
Hi guys, I am proposing a new design pattern called chain of creation. Can you please have a look at it and share your thoughts. The new design pattern has several advantages over Factory pattern and is more flexible.
The messaging design pattern allows the interchange of information (i.e. messages) between components and applications. A messaging paradigm is widely used in the real world. Messages are interchanged all around us. Entities are constantly sending, receiving and processing messages.
GSMI’s Mobile + Web Developer Conference will be taking place in San Francisco on July 17-19, 2012. MWDCon will provide corporate and independent developers and designers with case-study driven, best practices to help keep pace with a constantly...
Do you want to create a unique digital e-magazine to show products like fashion clothes, jewellry etc on website, Facebook, or blog sites? Digital magazine software allows everyone to create amazing
Hi All, I have a requirement in my current project where i need to use aspectj with EJB 2.0 (Why EJB 2.0 because it is used in project and can't be replaced with newer version) without using Spring , can anybody tell me weather it...
Sometimes you may have a need to invoke a LOCAL EJB session beans in a normal java class, for example, Business Delegate class, this blog shows how to do it.
I am having a requirement to change the JSP display at runetime. We have an J2EE application where fields are show/hide based on logged in user country. The conditions are written in JSP code for hiding the fields. My requirement is to create a...
I have an internal application with a JSP page that sets a user info cookie and then launches new window with a URL to a different web server. The cookie is set with security = false, root path, and domain = "domain.com". Application uri is in...
We released JDOM 1.1.1 today. This release includes an important Namespace synchronization bug fix, a new SAXBuilder flag for faster parsing, an updated Jaxen library, new support for Unicode surrogate pairs, and support for the Android Dalvik VM.
Federal officials are seeking $655,125 in fines against Alaska Airlines and its Horizon Air affiliate for alleged safety violations, including failing to inspect a plane for cracks.
The youthful thief known as the "Barefoot Bandit," who led police on a two-year crime spree in stolen boats, cars and planes, has been moved out of solitary confinement and into the general inmate population at another prison in Washington state, corrections officials confirmed Thursday.
The youthful thief known as the "Barefoot Bandit," who led police on a two-year crime spree in stolen boats, cars and planes, has been moved out of solitary confinement and into the general inmate population at another prison in Washington state, corrections officials confirmed Thursday.
With the inclusion of the Argentinian national team that was highly successful at last year's Pan-Am Games and Washington's own top-ranked men's crew, the 2012 version of the Windemere Cup has a decidedly Olympic feel.
With the inclusion of the Argentinian national team that was highly successful at last year's Pan-Am Games and Washington's own top-ranked men's crew, the 2012 version of the Windemere Cup has a decidedly Olympic feel.
The King County Sheriff's Office has issued an Amber Alert for two young girls authorities say were taken by their mother after she allegedly stabbed her husband in Shoreline.
House prices in King County rose last month to their highest level since December 2010, according to statistics released Thursday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
Business & TechnologyThu, 03 May 2012 14:08:39 PDT
Average U.S. rates for 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages fell to fresh record lows this week, offering more incentive for Americans to buy or refinance homes.
Business & TechnologyThu, 03 May 2012 10:01:04 PDT
Seattle's advisory Northeast Design Review Board has approved the proposed design of developer Skanska USA's controversial deep-green office building on the border of Wallingford and Fremont.
Business & TechnologyWed, 02 May 2012 13:22:09 PDT
Seattle?s anarchist in Nikes has become an Internet meme, with this funny, doctored photo on Facebook that?s been shared more 800 times as of Thursday afternoon. The photo, by seattlepi.com photographer Joshua Trujillo, shows an anonymous protester banging on a Bank of America window while wearing a pair of Nikes. The same man also appears in other pictures heaving himself at Niketown, while wearing his Nikes. The photos, and the latest meme, tapped into a certain zeitgeist about the vandals from Seattle to Oakland, where rioters also caused some chaos. ?They probably set their ?Starbucks Iced Mocha Lattes? down to pick up the trash can lid!!? wrote one commenter. Visit [...]
Man charged with ripping off Miss Washington; sash, crown still gone
A 32-year-old man accused of using bank cards belonging to the reigning Miss Washington stolen during a car prowl has been charged with identity theft.
Remember John Brenna, the 50-year-old Portland man who stripped off his clothes at the Portland International Airport last month in protest of TSA searches?
Well, he's back. He's wearing clothes this time, but still speaking out against how he's being treating him in the wake of his nude demonstration.
KATU News in Portland interviewed Brenna, who said he refused to do community service in exchange for having the charges expunged from his record. "Since I didn't do anything wrong, I wasn't willing to make that compromise," he said.
Also, Brenna wants you to stop worrying about what he looks like naked.
A Belltown resident was stabbed shortly after midnight Thursday, and police say he claimed to have been ?attacked without reason? by a man on the street. The victim, who police say was very drunk, had trouble giving officers information about the incident and said he?d been stabbed near First Avenue and Stewart Street by a 27-year-old Asian man with blond hair, armed with an 8-inch knife. Medics treated the man who had a golf ball-sized bloodstain on his shirt. His injuries were not severe enough to be taken to a hospital. Officers searched the neighborhood but found couldn?t find the suspect or any witnesses.
Where are this boy's parents? Are they the ones giggling behind the camera while an angry lioness attempts to bite off their child's head through a glass wall?
OK, instinctive outrage aside, this young visitor to the Portland Zoo is obviously in no danger. And the lion is pretty hilarious -- especially those bicycle-kicks it does with its front paws.
"Say, "Hi, kitty kitty."
Former State Rep. Laura Ruderman has lately been overshadowed in Washington?s wide-open 1st Congressional District race as rival Suzan DelBene has claimed such Democratic backers as Gov. Chris Gregoire and U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen. Ruderman is now on the board with an important endorsement from within the sprawling district, which extends from the U.S.-Canada border south to Redmond and Kirkland. The 45h Legislative district Democrats decided Wednesday night to endorse Ruderman, with a screening committee saying: ?We see Laura as a unifier, a team player and a leader.? The panel gave a nod to DelBene?s ?deep substantive analysis of longstanding issues,? and paid tribute to Darcy Burner?s work in Washington, [...]
Feds: Seattle man, purported torture victim illegally sent money to Sudan
A Portland man who recently accused the FBI of having him tortured while overseas has been indicted on allegations that he conspired to smuggle money to Sudan, as has a Seattle man alleged to have helped in the effort.
Washington State Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown will not seek reelection from her Spokane district, ending a 20-year career in the State Legislature. ?I decided that, though it is still immensely gratifying to serve Spokane and the state of Washington in this capacity, I am ready for new challenges,? Brown said in a statement. Brown is the lone remaining Democratic state senator from Eastern Washington. She has been a voice on issues from cleaning up the Spokane River in her hometown to pushing statewide legislation to combat human trafficking and legalize same-sex marriage. ?Today, Spokane is losing one of its most influential leaders: I?m proud to have served with her [...]
Even if you're not in the market a $1.25 million green home on a resort golf course, it's always fun to check out the pictures. So here's 741 Maple Leaf Loop, in Suncadia resort.
Foreclosure activity sank by half in King County and Washington last quarter from a year earlier, according to a new report. But this may be deceiving.
Seattle house prices rose for the second month in a row in March, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service reported Thursday. One reason is an extremely low supply.
Former State Rep. Laura Ruderman has lately been overshadowed in Washington’s wide-open 1st Congressional District race as rival Suzan DelBene has claimed such Democratic backers as Gov. Chris Gregoire and U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen. Ruderman is now on the board with an important endorsement from within the sprawling district, which extends from the U.S.-Canada border [...]
DemocratsElection 2012Suzan DelBeneJoel ConnellyThu, 03 May 2012 18:40:00 +0000
Washington State Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown will not seek reelection from her Spokane district, ending a 20-year career in the State Legislature. “I decided that, though it is still immensely gratifying to serve Spokane and the state of Washington in this capacity, I am ready for new challenges,” Brown said in a statement. Brown [...]
DemocratsElection 2012Governor Chris GregoireWashington State LegislatureJoel ConnellyThu, 03 May 2012 18:04:34 +0000
America’s Catholic voters are evenly divided between President Obama and Republican nominee-in-waiting Mitt Romney, according to Gallup Poll findings released on Wednesday. In crunching the numbers, however, Gallup found that Hispanic Catholics favor Obama by a 70-20 percent margin, while white Catholics lean toward Romney 55 percent to 38 percent. The nation’s Catholic bishops have [...]
Barack ObamaElection 2012Romneypolitical pollsJoel ConnellyThu, 03 May 2012 02:50:13 +0000
A group of 17 Democratic legislators on Wednesday endorsed Initiative 502, which would legalize the growing and sale of marijuana, in limited quantities, to those over 21 years of age. But the list of endorsers is a usual-suspects list, dominated by Seattle-area liberals, with such lawmakers as State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Wells and Reps. Roger Goodman [...]
Attorney General Rob McKennaCanadaMarijuana legalizationRep. Jay InsleeRep. Roger GoodmanJoel ConnellyThu, 03 May 2012 01:02:49 +0000
The Democrats’ cry of a “War On Women” was at full volume on Wednesday: Party luminaries and former CIA covert operative Valerie Plame Wilson used a Planned Parenthood Votes luncheon to rally the home front for Governor candidate Jay Inslee. But Republican gubernatorial hopeful, Attorney General Rob McKenna, decried what he called “political hype”, later [...]
AbortionAttorney General Rob McKennaDemocratsElection 2012Rep. Jay Insleebirth controlJoel ConnellyWed, 02 May 2012 22:46:05 +0000
The suggestion by Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain that Catholic parishes serve as signature gathering centers for an anti same-sex marriage referendum has provoked struggles of conscience among clergy and faithful. Some of Seattle’s largest parishes — e.g. St. James Cathedral, St. Joseph Parish, Our Lady of the Lake — have refused to participate in [...]
Archbishop SartainElection 2012gay marriageJoel ConnellyWed, 02 May 2012 02:12:55 +0000
Richard Grenell has resigned as Mitt Romney’s foreign policy and national security spokesman after less than two weeks on the job, under fire from the conservative press because he is gay. Grenell worked for four United Nations ambassadors during the Bush administration, from the ultraconservative John Bolton to moderate Republican ex-Sen. John Danforth. He quit [...]
Election 2012Romneygay marriageJoel ConnellyWed, 02 May 2012 00:49:39 +0000
Voicing her “ardent support” to protect key federal holdings in the San Juan Islands, Gov. Chris Gregoire indicates she would support action by President Obama if Congress continues to dawdle. “I understand a Presidential Proclamation to place these lands in conservation status is being considered if Congressional action for designation as a National Conservation Area [...]
Barack ObamaGovernor Chris GregoireJoel ConnellyTue, 01 May 2012 23:25:53 +0000
Public approval for the U.S. Supreme Court has fallen to a 25-year low according to a new national poll by the Pew Research Center. The poll was taken late last month after the Supremes heard oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act, with such members as Justice Antonin Scalia making no secret of their biases [...]
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, visits Seattle on Thursday to open the Democrats’ state Victory 2012 office at 901 Rainier Ave. S. The brassy Florida congresswoman, a fixture on Cable TV talk shows, will be on hand for a 3:30 office-warming party. It that will include workers from the campaigns [...]
Barack ObamaDemocratsElection 2012UncategorizedJoel ConnellyTue, 01 May 2012 02:46:17 +0000
This tutorial shows how to prepare an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) server (with Apache2, BIND, Dovecot) for the installation of ISPConfig 3, and how to install ISPConfig 3. ISPConfig 3 is a webhosting control panel that allows you to configure the following services through a web browser: Apache or nginx web server, Postfix mail server, Courier or Dovecot IMAP/POP3 server, MySQL, BIND or MyDNS nameserver, PureFTPd, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, and many more. This setup covers Apache (instead of nginx), BIND (instead of MyDNS), and Dovecot (instead of Courier).
Welcome to this year's ninth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:
* Deploy your own "cloud" with Debian "Wheezy"
* Debian Tour in Nicaragua
* Debian at ESRF
* Bits from the DPL
* Interviews
* Other news
* Upcoming events
* New Debian Contributors
* Release-Critical bugs statistics for the upcoming release
* Important Debian Security Advisories
* New and noteworthy packages
* Work-needing packages
* Want to continue reading DPN?
PHP 5.3.12 and
5.4.2 have been released to fix a nasty security hole that was
disclosed somewhat sooner than planned. Essentially, it allows any remote
attacker to pass command-line arguments to the PHP interpreter behind a web
page?but only in the (hopefully rare) setups where PHP is invoked via the
CGI mechanism. "If you are using Apache mod_cgi to run PHP you may
be vulnerable. To see if you are just add ?-s to the end of any of your
URLs. If you see your source code, you are vulnerable. If your site renders
normally, you are not."
On his blog, Uwe Hermann writes about the free logic analyzer software that he and Bert Vermeulen have been working on. "I originally started working on an open-source logic analyzer software named "flosslogic" in 2010, because I grew tired of almost all devices having a proprietary and Windows-only software, often with limited features, limited input/output file formats, limited usability, limited protocol decoder support, and so on. Thus, the goal was to write a portable, GPL'd, software that can talk to many different logic analyzers via modules/plugins, supports many input/output formats, and many different protocol decoders.
[...]
The advantage being, that every time we add a new driver for another logic analyzer it automatically supports all the input/output formats we already have, you can use all the protocol decoders we already wrote, etc. It also works the other way around: If someone writes a new protocol decoder or file format driver, it can automatically be used with any of the supported logic analyzers out of the box."
(Thanks to Paul Wise.)
Worldwide, data is growing at a tremendous rate. However, one recent study has pointed out that the size of files is not necessarily growing at the same rate; meaning the number of files is growing rapidly. How do we manage all of this data and files? While the answer to that question is complex, one place we can start is with Extended File Attributes. Continue reading →
DatacenterHomepageJeffrey LaytonWed, 29 Jun 2011 20:42:11 +0000
Security always requires a multi-layered scheme. SSH is a good example of this. Methods range from simple sshd configuration through the use of PAM to specify who can use SSH, to application of port-knocking techniques, or to hide the fact that SSH access even exists. Applying these techniques can make life much harder for possible intruders, who will have to go past three unusual barriers."Learn 3 ways of hardening SSH access to your system to block would-be crackers"
Bazaar is used to produce the Ubuntu Linux distribution, which is an enormous software project with thousands of components. If you're using a UNIX or Linux system, chances are that your distribution offers a pre-built Bazaar package. Bazaar is flexible enough to accommodate Subversion - a centralized system and Git - a decentralized system. This article introduces you to Bazaar's many appealing features."Intro to Bazaar, a great place to keep your code"
As the kernel and user space exist in different virtual address spaces, there are special considerations for moving data between them. Explore the ideas behind virtual address spaces and the kernel APIs for data movement to and from user space, and learn some of the other mapping techniques used to map memory."An introduction to Linux memory and user space APIs"
Python programmers shouldn't get too smug. While many people agree that Python is designed in a way that makes it a highly readable language, there can still be problems with legacy, untested Python code too. Porting legacy Perl to Python can be a daunting task. In this article, learn some of the theory behind dealing with legacy code, including what not to do."Techniques for migrating legacy, untested Perl to Python"
The IBM AIX operating system provides a highly scalable IT infrastructure for client workloads. Learn about the latest version, AIX 7.1, an open standards-based UNIX operating system, that includes significant new capabilities for virtualization, security features, availability features, and manageability."Learn about the latest version of AIX 7.1 - an open standards-based UNIX operating system"
PowerHA for AIX is the new name for HACMP (High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing). HACMP is an application that makes system fault resilient and reduces downtime of applications. This article introduces PowerHA and provides a detailed explanation of how to configure a two node cluster. This document is very useful for understanding PowerHA and setting up a two node cluster."Get Power high availability by Configuring a PowerHA cluster" Introduction to PowerHA
Learn how to check the integrity of your Linux filesystems, monitor free space, and fix simple problems. Use the material in this article to study for the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) 11 exam for Linux system administrator certification or just to check your filesystems and keep them in good working order, especially after a system crash or power loss. Today's world relies heavily on technology, and at times technology can fail us. That is why, unlike traditional methods of storage s
Ksplice applies kernel patches on-the-fly - no reboot required in a fraction of a second. Here's a hands-on guide to performing painless system updates. Learn how to patch a live kernel and give reboots the boot."Avoid reboots of your system with live Kernel updates using Ksplice" Live Kernel Patches with Ksplice
Amaze your friends with cool vi tips and tricks that will improve the efficiency of your file editing. This article takes you through ten of the less well-known vi commands that should form part of any serious vi user's toolkit."Become a vi editing wizard with these 1 tips" vi tips and tricks: Ten cool commands
Great article describing level one and two memory caching in zfs."L2ARC is a new layer between Disk and the cache (ARC) in main memory for ZFS. It uses dedicated storage devices to hold cached data. The main role of this cache is to boost the performance of random read workloads. The intended L2ARC devices include 1K/15K RPM disks like short-stroked disks, solid state disks (SSD), and other media with substantially faster read latency than disk." Understanding ZFS & ZFS ARC/L2ARC
OASIS announced a new Web Services Calendar (WS-Calendar) TC, chartered to adapt existing calendaring and scheduling specifications to develop a Common Scheduling standard that defines how schedule, event, and interval information is passed between/within services. Beginning with the 'iCalendar XML Representation' standard from CalConnect/IETF, the TC will create a specification for creating, retrieving, updating, and deleting calendar events on a schedule.
The OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) TC approved a Committee Draft of the CMIS Version 1.0 specification for public review through December 22, 2009. CMIS defines a domain model along with Web Services and Restful AtomPub bindings that can be used by applications to work with different content management repositories/systems. CMIS defines generic/universal CMS capabilities, and the interface is layered on top of existing CM systems.
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) announced a new Incubator project to support the OASIS Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification. The Apache Chemistry Incubation development effort will implement the latest draft of the CMIS specification and provide input to the TC on the implementation details. It is also anticipated that the group will produce a CMIS Reference Implementation (RI) and a CMIS Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK).
Building things will be very important in Amberfell. There are basically two reasons for this. Firstly you’ll need to build workshops to be able to craft the equipment you’ll need to extract and process amberfell itself (I’ll explain a bit … Continue reading →
UncategorizedamberfellIan DavisWed, 02 May 2012 23:29:35 +0000
Phil Hassey, an indie game developer, writes about the tough decision to can 5 months of development on his game and start over: One of the things I?m thankful for is, by being an indie, I GET TO MAKE MY … Continue reading →
UncategorizedcultureindieIan DavisWed, 02 May 2012 08:24:01 +0000
I thought I’d try and make it easier for people who want to try their hand at creating custom player skins for Amberfell. I made a template image with each section of the skin highlighted. Here it is with the … Continue reading →
